We caught “the Fluj”

Now that cold and flu season is pretty much behind, we thought we’d warn you about “the fluj”. You may have read his comments on various real estate blogs around town, and we’re delighted to say, we caught him. We’re going to attempt a new weekly (maybe not so often) post allowing “the fluj” an open mic and all his haters/lovers to hit him with any questions, comments, bickers that you can and see how he handles it.

My sushi chef told me something similar for restaurants on his street. Mostly, the thugs target restaurants that do not have windows opening out to the street. That way, nobody can see what’s going on inside and the restaurants become easy targets.

The pizza joint killing on Irving by 19th is particularly worrying, as the police cannot find anybody that will testify against the shooter; and yet there were like 30 people at the scene when the shooting happened. The detectives thought they had a witness, and apparently she either backed out, or started saying something different, so the DA decided not to bring charges against the suspect.

Wow. 30 people around, and the police couldn’t get anybody to tell them who did it.

Lot’s of smashed car windows around Alta Plaza and Lafayette parks recently. Saw several this morning including BMW 3 Series parked right out front of a super high end building on Stiener. Yikes. Keep your cars empty on the inside and hide your GPS!

Yes, I begged Satchel to start a blog. His writing was so informed, and so well written it was ridiculous. If he started a real estate class I would pay good money to attend.

Satchel, come back, we need you!

Is it going to be Fluj on all sites now? No more Kenny?

Oh, and given all this crime is happening within a mile or so of my home, I am a bit concerned about this. I don’t want my kids ducking gunfire, and I don’t want our family dinner outings to be interrupted by shotguns.

missionite I’m not sure what you mean re: this Kenny that you speak of.

The thing about the Baretta restaurant is that it is perfect. The guy must have cased the joint. There is a side entrance on the 23rd street side. Upon entering that way one can command the entire restaurant easily as one is in the very center of the room. This guy was very composed and vanished into thin air. I hate to say it but it seemed like he had training or experience, or both.

I see broken car window glass in every single neighborhood and I always have. Brazen robberies though? Never saw one before.

As for Satchel I think he is a very good writer too. I would take an econ class from him. I would definitely pass on a real estate class though. Most of the stuff he said about neighborhood trends, and in particular individual properties I tended to disagree with. He often predicted far less than what properties wound up selling for. He also inserted a few too many “tee hee” comments vis a vis people losing their shirts. But on balance he was great. I agree. He’s missed. I’ll ask Alex to shoot him an email, sure.

I think he bailed because he was verbally accosted one too many times. It’s sort of tough to take sometimes though. It’s like, yeah, it’s just words on a screen and big deal. Let it roll off your back. But I mean, jeez. Sometimes folks can go beyond simply being a little snide and flippant. Somebody said something to me yesterday that would have caused an altercation if it had happened in person. So I can see why ole Satchel probably said “the hell with it.”

I don’t think Adam deletes everything that isn’t bearish. He’s a bear himself, clearly, but I wouldn’t say that. I think he lets me post there as much as I do because at this point there are hardly any bullish or even real estate types at all. So I keep it lively or something. Plus I give those guys free stats all the time.

No, most of the real estate types are long gone. It’s mostly a bunch of fence sitters patting themselves on the back. Some of them perhaps rightfully patting themselves on the back, but hey, that’s what they’re doing.

Anyway, I post there too much though. I’m going to post there less often. This last run-in was deeply unpleasant and I can now see that similar stuff is gonna happen. You can’t just run around calling people bigots. It could land you in court.

Fluj – The reason why there aren’t any bullish comments is simply b/c he deletes them all. It’s really that simple. I think there is a 2221 Baker St. place that sold for $400,000… and he won’t even highlight that even thought he was mocking the place when it was listed last month on his site!

There are so many properties in District 7 going for new record highs, but yet, he continues to focus on the crappy properties that are on the maret 1 year later.

I do feel sorry for Adam, and a lot of people who are paying ridiculous amounts of rent in this city.

Yeah but he sees you working too. You don’t really qualify the success stories. There have been some failures too. I agree for the most part. District 7 has been doing great. No question. So has just about all of 5, most of 6, and most of 8 and 9 too for that matter. I’ve seen the Richmond perform better than last year, month in and month out. And the Sunset is really yet to take that plunge many of us have been expecting. My experience hasn’t been that he deletes bullish posts. What I see is that average buyers and the few realtors left are drowned by an ocean of bears doing the same numbers breakdowns ad infinitum.

You mentioned D6 as doing well (most parts anyway). Where do you see this district going in the future? Seems like the lower Divis corridor (as I have heard it called now) is getting better between Haight and Geary over the last several years, but still has some distance to go. To me the NOPA area of D6 has the best prospects due to the lack of any real projects in it (other than that tall building on McAllister where all the grannies live). Positives and negatives of this area would be interesting to hear.

Oh man. I just did a wrote a whole bunch of stuff and accidentally deleted it.

Anyway, I did a polygonal map search because I don’t feel as if the SFARMLS designations properly delineate the truly desirable areas over there. I think it goes from Scott and Fell west along just before Fell to just before Masonic, north to just south of Turk and East back to Scott and down. I went back six months.

I wound up with only two SFR sales. It makes sense. They are in short supply in that grid. They’re both in contract after big price reductions. They are 700 Broderick and 1631 Hayes. 700 Broderick isn’t really an SFR. 1631 Hayes initially wanted north of $2M, and is now pending for around $1.8M.

What’s more common over there is 2-4 unit buildings and condos/TICs. For condos and TICs I see 35 entries. Eleven active, six in contract, two pending, and 16 sold. Of the active only four or so seems tale. Three of those are the astronomically priced 1640 Hayes street properties. The average for ppsqft for condos and TICs is 741 a foot.

The 2-4 units show four active, one in contract, one pending, and four sold. The one act. cont. is a large vacant three unit @ 1864-1868 Golden Gate. They wanted nearly $3M and were only on the market for two weeks.

I think all told this shows a relatively scarce inventory and signinficant demand.

We can talk about neighborhood trends over there too, if you like. You mentioned Divis all the way to Geary. I disagree. I think you really need to stop around Turk street and points north. Turkwood is a trouble spot over there.

You are very knowledgable about SF RE market. I like Satchel’s posts, but to tell the truth, his writing is too long, and I don’t have the patience to finish them. But it is fun to see him stirring up the pot on SS.

So, in your opinion, what’s the next hot neighborhood? – not the ones which already had the huge appreciation, but the hidden jewels.

That’s a tough one. I’ve long felt that the area between Lower Pac Heights and Laurel Village is artificially undervalued because of the projects. I read recently that they are on the list slated to be demolished. If that is a lock, look for that neighborhood to appreciate greatly.

I also think that the Inner Richmond area basically parkside between Cabrillo and Fulton and like 3rd to 12th is undergoing a change. That area is going from low to mid million plus territory to routinely seeing the 1.7 to 2M and beyond range. This is happening pretty rapidly.

Thank you for your earnest concern about my work acumen. It’s nice to have fans.

I always have a computer screen or three or four open at my home office. It’s no big deal to quickly submit to a blog while poring over the MLS or reading articles or looking at foreclosure data. In fact that’s the bulk of my job. I try to find the very best deal there is for several groups of very specific buyers.

I just closed on a listing. I have another coming up in two months. A third group is waiting for a conservatorship to be obtained so that they can purchase a property.I just picked up another listing for later this year. And the group who just closed are going to buy something very soon. I just need to stare at the MLS and other databases until I can figure out what that is.

It’s good to be busy! But let’s be honest, you must spend a ton of time on socketsite for all the comments and reading you submit. It’s not a bad thing – hell these RE blogs can be addicting!

While I do not agree with all of your insight and opinions on the local market most of the time, I do appreciate your voice and the apparent well above average intelligence level (for a realtor) you bring to socketsite, even thought that site is getting a little sloppier lately with both the topics and the general commenting.

SS is great when I’m feeling a little down, i go there to read all the whining and complaining by 40 year old renters, and other losers who believe the world should come to them, instead of work hard for themselves :)

Oh sure, DG. I spend way too much time on there. I am not just a RE blogger either. I have a background in editing for Web. I have spent countless hours wasting time posting on music BBS’s over the years too!

It’s nice to try to understand people’s uncensored opinions. In real life (most) folks just don’t let fly with their true feelings on most matters. Even in RE, a couple who pass on a property won’t necessarily express why they thought it wasn’t for them. They’ll just smile and you’ll never hear from them again.

And also this market we’ve been experiencing. What do people really think about it? The average person on the street who is not actively in the market will tell you that the market is terrible. Yet if you look around SF, it is amazingly anything but terrible. Sure, over at SS a lot of posters would love to impose statewide or nationwide trends on SF and it gets tiresome. Especially when someone says something like, “Glen Park is tanking right now” or something else completely false like that. But if you sift through it you can pick up some great information.

Absolutely Fluj. I am a bear in general, but I admit there are many strong pockets of resistance in SF thus far. How long will it last, that’s a tough call. But historical trends say it is slowing of course. I don’t like the uber bears or uber bulls either – people need to just be more objective and just read the data, history, and trend lines. It’s really not that hard. :)

I am excited to be on the sidelines renting waiting until the right time to get back in – whether that be in SF or Oakland, I am not sure at this point.

No, I haven’t seen that one. Guess I must have just missed it on that polygonal search I did. But I think the attic must be included. They put “condo map” as the square foot source and it’s showing 2347 on the MLS. It’s 511 a foot over there, and it’s already a condo? That’s well below average. This one will go fast and for more than asking, I’ll bet.

I guess the pricing must be constrained by the area’s traditional value ceiling.

I only show three 6-F sales for 1.2M or more going back to 2000. They are, 1696 McCallister 3200sf sold for 1.2M in May of 2004, 1941 Grove 2020 feet sold for 1.2M in late August 2006, and 2184 fell 1534 feet but very nice with two car parking and a deeded roofdeck sold for $1.275M in late January this year.

This one seems at least as good if not better than all of those. It has McCallister beat with views. It’s superior to Grove in size. And it surpasses Fell in views, size, and location.

For those who weren’t I’ll tell you. The property is on the block between Cabrillo and Fulton. A great location, it’s right next to G.G. Park. The property is what we call a “Cosmetic Fixer.” With some hard work and some nice contemporary choices, it could become the sort of home that fits into a lot of different demographics’ plans.

Anyway, it got 21 offers after 10 days on the market. Forty disclosure packets went out. It’s a fixer in the Richmond. It was priced above a million. I’m pretty amazed. I mean, yeah it has mega potential, but still. It requires at least 300-400K. Apparently that did not scare off many end users ….

I drive by that one all the time on the way out to soccer games. I think that’s one of those few houses in SF that falls into the realm of the purely speculative. It’s for someone who loves the Sunset, doesn’t mind a busy street, wants a huuuge home, and is cool with spending way more than his/her neighbors.

Yes, I saw it. Really bad shape. I wouldn’t touch it. Worse shape than the 2645 Lincoln. It would be nice if someone put in the money and time to restore it to the original condition. However, it needs structural work.

Yes. I walk by 192 Judah often and last couple of weeks I saw contractors inside and outside that humongous house fixing it up. Before it was sold there were blue tar sheets on the roof (I guess it was leaking)… Definitely would be interested in seeing the “after” for this house. I hope they get to keep the exterior architecture…